Passion or Profession

Passion, I believe, is a very strong and often misused word. Passion, by its very definition, is a powerful and uncontrollable emotion towards an activity. When you are passionate about something, you can go to extreme ends to pursue that activity. When you have a passion, you would spend your time doing that activity even without any goal in mind.

I like my profession. It keeps me on my toes and helps me keep challenging myself. But do I have a strong and uncontrollable emotion towards my profession? Would I go to the extreme ends just to consult more? Would I spend insane hours consulting every week even if there is no monetary incentive for me? I don’t think so.

Passion is close to madness. When you are passionate about an activity, you would look forward to that activity and keep thinking about that activity all the time.

While I consider my career as my top priority, calling my profession my passion would be doing injustice to the word. If there is anything even close to passion that I have experienced in my life so far, it is dancing. Dancing is the only activity I look forward to all the time, even without any goal in mind. I live through the week because I look forward to dancing over the weekend.

You do not always need to be passionate about your profession to perform well in your career. You can have a passion outside your profession as well, that rejuvenates you every now and then and helps you perform better in your profession.

 

-Rohan Jain